The U.S. has the highest reported
incarceration rate in the world. We’ve rounded up some of the best
investigative journalism on U.S. prisons and the problems that plague them. These
stories cover juvenile justice, private prisons, immigration detention and
other aspects of America’s vast incarceration system.

Louisiana’s incarceration rate tops the U.S.’s, Iran’s and China’s. This
eight-part series explains how it got there: lobbying from private prison
companies, cash-strapped municipalities, harsh sentencing, and limited
rehabilitation for those who make it out.

Programs that keep some sex offenders detained indefinitely after their
criminal sentences are up have grown drastically in recent years, and so has
their cost—“civil commitment” is on average four times as expensive as
prison. But releasing sex offenders has proven politically fraught. (For a few
state-by-state investigations, see these muckreads on Washington, Virginia,
and New York.)

Thousands of inmates are stuck in jail for petty,
nonviolent crimes simply because they can’t make bail. This NPR series showed
how the country’s bail system “exists almost solely to protect the
interests of a powerful bail bonding industry.”

Some guards at New York City’s prison island, Rikers, weren’t just turning a
blind eye to violence--they were encouraging it. The Voice has been covering
the fallout from Rikers’ “ Fight
Club” ever since, and five years later, they obtained
gruesome photos showing rampant
violence persists, despite the Correction
Department’s efforts.

Atul Gawande looked at the U.S.'s widespread use of
isolation, which has ballooned in the past 20 years. At least 25,000 prisoners
are now held in isolation just in so-called super-max prisons. And their minds
can quickly degrade. "The experience," Gawande writes,
"typically leaves them unfit for social interaction."

An investigation the effects of solitary confinement on mentally ill prisoners
in Pennsylvania. Also see this account
from the Arizona Republic: nineteen prisoners in Arizona have
killed themselves in the last two years, many of them while in solitary confinement—a
widespread practice in the state.

Earlier this year the Justice Department laid out new rules
aimed at eliminating widespread sexual abusein U.S. prisons.
This article chronicles the ordeal of one inmate who tried to report rape in a
Colorado prison.

America locks up children at a quicker rate than all other developed countries,
with about 60,000 juveniles imprisoned on any given day. Photographer Richard
Ross spent five years photographing the little-seen conditions inside 350
correction centers across the U.S.

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision
this week to strike down mandatory life-without-parole sentences for
juveniles, it’s worth revisiting these exposes of juvenile justice in Colorado
and Massachusetts, two states that often sentence teens as adults.

Privately run immigration detention facilities have proliferated along the
U.S.-Mexico border. But the small towns where they’re located have rarely
benefited. (Such tales aren’t limited to the border, as this
report from Georgia tells).

The country’s two largest private prison companies have spent tens of millions
on lobbying in the past decade and doubled their campaign contributions, as the
government launched tougher immigration rules. Since 2005, they’ve also more
than doubled their revenues from immigration detention.

Clarification (6/29): We’ve clarified this story to note that the U.S. has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world. There are a few countries—notably North Korea—for which reliable prison statistics aren’t available.

Let private enterprise do it “better”, and they’ll want to do more. That’s just one more reason not to privatise things like prisons, where you don’t want people trying to “grow” the market.

In the meantime, governments love to keep the public fearful. It keeps them docile. So terrify everyone with stories of all those criminals out there, make sure there are laws to make just about anyone a criminal, and you keep the power.

WHY DON’T WE JUST CUT TO THE CHASE…CLOSE ALL THE HIGH SHOOLS NOW…WE ARE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION ANYHOW…THINK OF THE MONEY WE WILL SAVE…NO TEACHERS TO PAY…NO CAFETERIA WORKERS…NO JANITORES ETC. LET’S JUST PUT ALL THE STUDENTS INTO PRISON..BECAUSE AT THE RATE WE ARE GOING THEY WILL MOST LIKELY END UP THERE ANYHOW….. READ A BOOK (WHILE BOOKS ARE STILL AVAILABLE)..ATLAS DRUGGED,AYN RAND BE DAMNED..BY STEPHEN GOLDSTEIN

Colorado prison on Smith Road, had excellent “cafeteria” food was in a Denver Post article. I heard recently, not that it occurred recently, that BANKS , Big ones make much profits off prisoners, not the first time I’ve heard this. We are The UGLY Americans, aren’t we?

Please add Jocelyn Wiener’s series which includes the plight of mentally ill prisoners. Wiener writes, ” it’s not uncommon for seriously ill inmates to wait there for months, even after a judge orders them transferred to a state hospital.”

An innocent man was released in Colorado after DNA testing and in prison for a crime he didn’t commit for 17 years. He got nothing. No training, education, nothing , not even money to get past the gate per the news article. Innocence Project is working on this as Colorado prisoners who are found innocent, no matter how much time they paid, get nothing upon release.
Human Rights ARE important in America and the world!
Corruption is NOT right in any country.

Prisons are breading grounds for goup criminal behaviour. the more prisons we build the more we will have to build. I suppose that is good for business and the banks——but I say Spend all the money we spend now prisons on education and rehabilitation and training… make prisons self supporting… . Eliminate the practice of human degredation. it is simply not to be tolerated by any decent free man.

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